, .6 



WEW YORK 

THE NATION'S METROPOLIS 




PETER MARCUS 




Class 

Copyright N^- 



CfiPWJJGHT DEPOSm 



\ 



NEW YORK 
THE NATION'S METROPOLIS 



NEW YORK 

THE NATION'S METROPOLIS 



BY 

PETER MARCUS 

WITH AN APPRECIATION BT 

J. MONROE HEWLETT 

PRESIDENT OF THE ARCHITECTURAL LEAGUE 
OF NEW YORK 




NEW YORK 

BRENTANO'S 

PUBLISHERS 






COPYRIGHT, 192 I, BY 
BKENTANO'S 



All rights reserved 



THE PLIMPTON PRESS 
NORWOOD -M ASS -U-S -A 

APR -5 1921 



■^CU611G03 



CONTENTS 

I. Times Square. 

II. Lower Broadway. 

III. Exchange Place. 

IV. Looking West on Brooklyn Bridge. 
V. The City Hall. 

VI. Wall Street. 
VII. r he Old Bridge. 
VIII. The Tombs Prison. 
IX. Looking West Along Peck Slip. 
X. The East Pier, Brooklyn Bridge. 
XI. The Municipal Building. 
XII. New Tork from Fulton Ferry. 
XIII. The Metropolitan Tower. 
XIV. The Cathedral on the Avenue. 
XV. ^ueensboro Bridge. 
XVI. Fifth Avenue at Fifty-ninth Street. 
XVII. Hell Gate Bridge. 
XVIII. Soldiers and Sailors Monument. 
XIX. The Cathedral on the Heights. 

XX. The Viaduct. 
XXI. Grant's Tomb. 
XXII. The Battleship "Oklahoma'' on the Hudson. 

XXIII. High Bridge. 

XXIV. Washington Bridge. 

XXV. Grand Central Station. 

Ill 



NEW YORK 
THE CITY OF VIOLENT CONTRASTS 

NEW YORK Is preeminently the City of Violent 
Contrasts. Towering shafts of brick and stone 
and steel, soaring traceries of cables, derricks, girders 
and electric signs, smooth stretches of gray asphalt, 
subway and sewer excavations, broad harbors and 
stately ships, oily canals and garbage dumps, classic 
columns, gilded domes, palaces and shanties, parks 
and fountains, factory chimneys and gas tanks; these 
are a few of the items that occur in this as in other 
cities, but nowhere else are these and other manifes- 
tations of beauty and ugliness, prosperity and squalor 
brought into such vivid and striking relief, and of no 
other city can we say with equal truth that it defies 
the effort to summarize briefly its typical character- 
istics. Fragments and details suggestive of widely 
diff^ering phases of its life persistently force themselves 
into a single picture without regard to orderly classi- 
fication or proper dramatic sequence. 

Appreciation of the beauty of nature as undisturbed 
by man seems inherent in our race, but man in his 
material progress is constantly defacing nature, con- 
stantly destroying, constantly substituting forms and 
arrangements dictated by utility, not by beauty, and 

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shocking to our finer instincts. Then imagination 
(steps in and gradually invests these new forms with 
jnew meanings derived from history, logic, romance, 
/ symbolism and pure poetic fancy. Some are con- 
demned and discarded as unnecessary or useless, 
while others at first glance equally ugly acquire a 
significance and a soul. Of him who would interpret 
such a theme as New York our first demand must 
therefore be prophetic vision. 

To the artist who seeks to penetrate the outer sur- 
faces of his subject and to suggest and interpret an 
activity, a creative power, a vastness of scale and a 
variety of functions beyond human power to portray, 
charcoal is a most, perhaps the most, inspiring medium. 
It is surely the medium that most readily lends itself 
to the simultaneous expression of form, mass, line and 
tone. 

Hopkinson Smith once said that Venice is nothing 
but air and water. There all else has been so softened 
and moulded and enveloped as to become part and 
parcel of sea and cloud. The portrayal of this is pre- 
eminently a painter's job. But New York, in addition 
to being a lot of other things, is a Venice in the making, 
and all the ugly paraphernalia by means of which this 
making is slowly going forward, all the unlovely pro- 
cesses, physical and chemical, structural and com- 
mercial, must be recognized and expressed and by the 
light of poetic vision be made a part of its beauty and 
romance. 

A painter might perhaps strive to envelope and 
obscure whatever seemed objectionable in a glory of 

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color. An architect might lay undue stress upon the 
many examples of distinction in the work of his craft, 
which are often all but details in a vast scheme. The 
pictorial expression of New York requires a blending 
of the view points of the painter and the architect in 
which both contribute to an image of something not 
yet realized, perhaps never to be fully realized, and 
help in dramatizing the struggle towards that thing. 

Peter Marcus is a painter not an architect, but he is 
also a designer experienced in the goldsmith's craft 
and there is evident in these charcoal studies a pleasure 
in the delineation of the tracery of bridge cables and 
trusses, derricks, scaffolding and electric signs, that in 
contrast with his broad and greatly simplified expres- 
sions of architectural form and detail, adds vastly to 
the eloquence of his work. Furthermore, he is a native 
of New York as his parents were before him, and the 
slow development by which New York has climbed >^ 
upward has been part and parcel of his life. These 
are the days of a premature development or forcing 
of the artistic personality, usually expressed at some 
sacrifice of the prevailing characters and sentiment of 
his subject. 

To my mind the most distinctive quality of these 
drawings is found in the complete subjection of the 
artist to the spirit of the thing represented. 

Lower Manhattan from the harbor, from Brooklyn, 
from across the Hudson and from the air has been 
exploited to such an extent as to destroy for the native 
New Yorker much of the impressiveness of this majes- / 
tic panorama, but lower Manhattan as seen from 



within by the man in the street has a different kind of 
impressiveness and pictorially has hitherto been some- 
what neglected. Five drawings are devoted to this 
theme — "Lower Broadway," "Wall Street," "The 
City Hall," "The Tombs," and "Exchange Place." 
These five drawings as a group seem to me to represent 
the culmination of the artist's achievement. They 
show a simplicity and ease of method, a definite con- 
ception and an admirable sureness of values and 
textures. In imaginative power and sinister sug- 

\ gestion, "Exchange Place" brings to mind Bochlin's 

' "Isle of the Dead" and it is not like that, a creation 
of the imagination but a truthful characterization of 
locality. A second group of five are "The Metropoli- 
tan Tower," "Times Square," "Grand Central Sta- 
tion," "The Municipal Building," and "The Cathedral 
on the Avenue." 

As these take us further up town into wider streets 

y and more extended surfaces of sky, distance and 
silhouette become increasingly important in their 
composition, and what we lose in concentration we 
gain in tonal interest. 

"The Old Bridge," "Washington Bridge," "Queens- 
boro Bridge," and "The Viaduct," fall naturally 
into a third group. Here we have a different mani- 

^' festation of energy, the architecture of the engineer, 
crisp and nervous in rendering, beautifully expressive 
of structure unadorned. 

If in the drawings thus far mentioned certain quali- 
ties of Piranesi, Meryon and Brangwyn are brought 
to mind; in "High Bridge," "The Soldiers' and 

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Sailors' Monument," "Hell Gate Bridge," "Grant's 
Tomb," and "The Cathedral on the Heights," there 
is equally a suggestion of Whistler. Less vigorous 
than the others in draughtsmanship, they are full of 
the suggestion of subdued color. By reason of the 
more subtle quality of their rendering, they lend them- 
selves less readily to reproduction but even the re- 
productions convey beautiful impressions of shadowy 
foliage and quiet waters, bare, wind-swept branches 
and lonely spaces. 

It is safe to predict that if he continues his interest 
in charcoal as a medium, Peter Marcus will gradually 
and naturally acquire a more characteristic personal 
manner, but it will come from ease of mastery not 
from assumed eccentricity, and whatever he may 
achieve in future this series of drawings will stand as 
the most comprehensive and broadly discerning study 
of New York in its entirety that has yet been made. 

J. Monroe Hewlett 

President of the 

Architectural League of 
New Tork 



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NEW YORK 
THE NATION'S METROPOLIS 



I 

TIMES SQUARE 

TIMES SQUARE is at the juncture of Broadway, 
Seventh Avenue and Forty-second Street. It is 
the very heart of uptown Broadway. Not the down- 
town Broadway of finance and of towering buildings, 
but the Broadway of theatres, restaurants, gay crowds 
and bright Hghts. It is bustHng, congested, whirhng. It 
is in a constant state of being rebuilt and repaired. Its 
sidewalks are littered with timbers, pipes, derricks and 
showy women. One hears jazz music and Klaxtons. It 
is the playground of the pleasure seeker, the battle- 
ground of the taxis, the dream of the chorus girl on the 
road, and the nightmare of the traffic cop. It is white 
lights, green lights, red lights, — flashing, spinning and 
winking. It is noise, crowds, motion. Sun and storm, 
day and night it roars along, churning, — a whirlpool in 
a mighty river. Incongruous, incessant, enormous. 



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II 

LOWER BROADWAY 

THE changes In New York in the last hundred 
years have been almost fabulous and yet the 
greatest of all perhaps has been lower Broadway. 
The proud steeple of Trinity Church once dominated 
a scene of fashion. It is now surrounded, dwarfed, 
overshadowed. Once Beaux and Belles, in Brummel- 
like hats and directoire skirts, came grandly here to 
worship, — and meant it. To-day, one picnics in 
the church yard and eats luncheon bananas on the 
graves. The enormous buildings of commerce, finance 
and trade are filled to overflowing. Here is progress, 
wealth and unlimited resource. It is a tremendous 
hive full of golden honey. And it is doubtless very 
good. But it is also good that this small church of 
a bygone time, still stands undaunted, — respected 
among these colossal towers; and that it still brings 
from the past some of that calm strength that is of 
even more lasting stuff than the masonry of the church 
itself, and that through it, the spirit of Old New York 
still *' carries on" in Lower Broadway. 



nisD 



in 

EXCHANGE PLACE 

RUNNING east from Broadway, just below Wall 
Street, is Exchange Place. It is a narrow street 
and a short, but it is not a little street. Huge build- 
ings are its walls, which seem almost to meet over- 
head. Straight up they tower, face to face, staring 
at each other with countless eyes. Daily into these 
few buildings come thousands and thousands of 
people: old and young, gay and sad, financiers and 
office boys, — to work. It is a good-sized town in one 
street. It is a veritable canon of the city. 



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IV 

LOOKING WEST ON BROOKLYN BRIDGE 

ONE of the "Views of New York'* most often 
pictured and most often snapped by amateur 
photographers is that of lower Manhattan as seen 
from a distance. And yet from a painting, photo- 
graph or drawing, who can feel what it is? As with 
pictures of the Grand Cafion, it seems impossible to 
realize the scale or to give the sense of its enormous 
size. To know what it is, one must have seen it. A 
picture, in this case, can only serve to refresh the 
memory of the man who knows. 



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V 
THE CITY HALL 

NOTHING better exemplifies the growth of New 
York than does the City Hall, standing as it 
does almost in the shadow of the Municipal Building. 
In the old days when it was the principal structure on 
City Hall Park, its three stories afforded ample room 
in which to carry on the city's affairs. It now houses 
only four offices, including that of the Mayor and that 
of the Art Commission. The other city offices, and 
their number is astounding, are elsewhere. But 
although the city has grown beyond recognition, the 
City Hall has proudly kept its place, and is honored 
as is a venerable old man, a bit less active than he was 
perhaps, but still the dignified head of a noble house. 



I Hi 



VI 
WALL STREET 

HERE is the force of the sea and the romance of 
a fairy tale. Here immense fortunes are won 
in a day and lost in less, and the hopes and savings 
of years vanish in an hour. Here are bank messengers 
who become millionnaires overnight and capitalists 
/ who awake penniless. It is the market of the whole 
country and of others. Here are corn and wheat 
heaped in huge confusion, millions of bales of cotton 
and barrels of oil, high-piled above the sky-scrapers. 
Railroads, steamers, banks and bullion; raw gold and 
ore, coal, silver and copper, mounting to the clouds 
in glimmering pinnacles and smoking hills. And 
through it all and around it all, pulses the restless 
swing and change, the tireless tide of "the street." 

And the traders! Giants and pygmies. Tumbling 
over each other, swarming, pushing, struggling. Here 
holding up a million head of cattle to the highest 
bidder, there beating down the price of a small nation. 
Here is a man beaten by a crowd for buying oil and 
there is another lying dead because he sold it. And 
away over there runs a little man who has succeeded 
in stealing a pig and is now scurrying off with it to 
safety. 

This mountainous market of hopes and of nations, 
of success and failure, of tragedy and comedy, of 
ships, steam, mines, and the lives of men, towering 
phantom-like and vast, — is Wall Street. 

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VII 
THE OLD BRIDGE 

BROOKLYN BRIDGE was the first bridge be- 
tween Manhattan and Long Island. The day 
of its opening was one of great pubHc enthusiasm. 
Parties were given for walking or driving across the 
bridge, and that night half New York and Brooklyn 
were on the house-tops to watch it illuminated by 
fire-works. In those days it was called "The Bridge." 
But now since the Manhattan, the Williamsburg and 
the Queensboro bridges have been added to the East 
River giants, it has become *'The Old Bridge,'* a name 
meaning many things to those who have known it 
from its beginning. Its erection was a long step 
towards close relationship between New York and 
the whole of Long Island. 



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VIII 
THE TOMBS PRISON 

WHO can look at a prison without being glad 
that he is not in it ? At the corner of Lafay- 
ette and Franklin streets is the great gray pile that 
is the Tombs. Its turrets, towers and narrow win- 
dows suggest dungeon keeps and feudal castles; its 
heavy gateways, — medieval strongholds. Its high 
exterior wall and "Bridge of Sighs'' make one re- 
member the lugubrious histories of the Doge's Palace 
and of the Tour de Nesle. Those inside bear the 
double burden of being imprisoned and of knowing 
that close about them is all the life of the great city: 
its lights, its restaurants, its countless activities and 
its friends. Yes, looking at the Tombs, grim as it is, 
makes one feel strangely fortunate. 



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IX 
LOOKING WEST ALONG PECK SLIP 

IF Father Knickerbocker should come over to New 
York on the Fulton Ferry, as in times gone by he 
used to do, when he had been visiting his respected 
neighbors on Brooklyn Heights; and if he should stand 
on South Street and look up Peck Slip and see it as it is 
to-day — how he would stare through his horn-rimmed 
spectacles and how his dear old heart would thump 
under his brass-buttoned coat ! How he would pinch 
himself and wonder what it all could mean! What was 
that enormous shaft all white and glowing in the after- 
noon, rising eight hundred feet or eight thousand to the 
very sky? What were those towers, spires and turrets, 
soaring above the clouds, the brilliant sunlight gilding 
their countless feathers of steam and decking their 
phantom minarets with myriad candles? What could 
it mean? Had he landed on Manhattan or was this 
some island built by fairies or by elves? Nay, this 
place was far too fair for that, and must be then the 
work of witchcraft and the devil. Or was it, after all, 
the same old place that he had known, but grown and 
glorified beyond belief? And when he finally realized 
this to be the case. Father Knickerbocker without 
doubt would be wondrous proud of his great-grandsons 
and of the New York of to-day. 

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KMa^k- - >^., 



X 

THE PIER 

LIKE twin Colossi, silent amid the hum of cities 
and the whistling of a thousand boats, the grim 
piers of Brooklyn Bridge stand sentry at the river's 
gate. 



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XI 
THE MUNICIPAL BUILDING 

ASTRIDE of Chamber Street at Park Row stands 
the Municipal Building. Under its roof are 
half a hundred commissions, departments, boards 
and bureaux that regulate such petty affairs as the 
highways, parks, water supply, bridges, taxes and 
fire-fighting for upwards of six millions of people. A 
gigantic task, and accomplished in a building well 
worthy of its responsibility. 



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J 



XII 
NEW YORK FROM FULTON FERRY 

WATCHING MANHATTAN as the boat comes near 
its shore, one seems to come under the spell of its 
incalculable weight, its stupendous mass of iron, brick and 
stone. It is oppressive, ominous. One feels the past, the 
present and the future; and the tremendous forces which 
must have worked together to produce this titanic off- 
spring, to have spawned this mountain of precipices. One 
feels the hidden activity, the pitiless struggle going on be- 
neath; yet a few puffs of smoke are all that betray the 
smouldering of the mighty fires. One lets one's mind sink 
into the vast depths between, to see little humanity run- 
ning here and there like ants amid the tangle of wires, 
tunnels and pipes. Little humanity that built it all. 

In the past, church spires rose majestic above the sur- 
rounding city. Now they are lost. The buildings of com- 
merce, creeping high and higher, have struggled upward, 
cUmbing upon one another's backs, and mounting each on 
the shoulder of each, in their ceaseless effort to be the 
tallest among their fellows. And just as it is among men 
and the rulers of men, as surely as one has gained the su- 
premacy, has come another to surpass him, swinging up- 
ward yet another fifty, one hundred, or two hundred feet, 
and from their thousand brazen throats has boomed again 
the cry, "Long Hve the king!" 

Eight hundred feet towers the monarch of to-day. He 
is called "Woolworth," and twelve thousand men live 
daily in his strength. His head is of gold but his feet are 
of clay, and who will be king to-morrow ? 

And wondering, one looks up and up, above the mightiest 
of these kings, and yet above the very summit of his crown, 
and there one sees — the sunset. 



tlWiWIJ^J^'^- 








XIII 
THE METROPOLITAN TOWER 

THE Home Office of the Metropolitan Life In- 
surance Co. is in the *' MetropoUtan Life Build- 
ing." It covers the whole block between Madison and 
Fourth Avenues and from Twenty-third to Twenty- 
fourth streets: some twenty-five acres. Its forty- 
odd-story tower dominates the whole of Madison 
Square and dwarfs its neighbors of a meagre twenty 
stories. Above the level of their roofs the face of a 
giant clock covers three stories of its front and stares 
unwinking at the thousands in the park. To old 
women and to newsboys, to strong men and to wasters, 
to honest and to sick, to those who read the columns 
under "Help Wanted — Male," and to those who 
have gone far beyond doing so, to the restless and the 
lonely among the crowds, waiting for that thing 
to *'turn up" that never, never does; to all these 
this ponderous clock points the passing of the minutes, 
hours, days, — of life itself: this clock, relentless as 
the sun, upon the Life Insurance tower. 



C403 



XIV 
THE CATHEDRAL ON THE AVENUE 

SAINT PATRICK'S CATHEDRAL on Fifth 
Avenue is the largest and finest Catholic church 
in the city. It is a magnificent structure, taking 
up the whole block between Fiftieth and Fifty-first 
streets and Madison Avenue. It fronts, of course, 
on Fifth Avenue, from where perhaps it can best be 
seen. One longs to see it standing in a more open 
space and to see its beauties as a whole from 
further off as one now sees its spires, which are re- 
markable from nearby but glorious from a greater 
distance. 



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XV 

QUEENSBORO BRIDGE 

QUEENSBORO BRIDGE is the most northerly 
of Manhattan's four East River bridges. Its 
mile and a half of mighty steel structure reaches from 
Second Avenue and Fifty-ninth Street well into Queens 
County, Long Island. Far below it in the middle of 
the river is Blackwells Island, on the south end of which 
is one of the city hospitals. The rest of this island is 
the cheerless home of an ever-changing group of 
those unfortunates, who through some unkind trick 
of fate have slipped, or have seemed to slip, into that 
uncharted realm vaguely called "Without the Law." 



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XVI 
FIFTH AVENUE AT FIFTY-NINTH STREET 

WHETHER under the regime of private or of 
business houses the region of Fifth Avenue 
at Fifty-ninth Street has been for a long time the 
luxury-centre of New York. On this enchanted soil 
is the well-known Vanderbilt home, one of the few 
dwellings that still resist the tide of business uptown 
to this point. Southward for miles "The Avenue" 
used to be the smartest residential street in the city. 
It is now the home of Rembrandts, pearls, sables. Rolls 
Royces beyond number, first editions, tear bottles, 
jades, and silken ankles. It is more dangerous to 
cross than the Continental Divide. It separates East 
from West in the city. 



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XVII 
HELL GATE BRIDGE 

HELL GATE BRIDGE derives its name from the 
treacherous section of the East River which it 
crosses. It is a most important part in a wonderful 
piece of railroad engineering. At New Rochelle 
tracks lead from the old New York, New Haven and 
Hartford lines to Port Morris, from here over Hell 
Gate Bridge, through the Borough of Queens and 
Long Island City, under the East River and half of 
Manhattan, to come to the surface at the Pennsylvania 
Station. Hell Gate Bridge runs from above Port 
Morris over Bronx Kills and Randall's Island, across 
Little Hell Gate and Ward's Island, and last, with its 
huge span, over Hell Gate to Astoria in Queens. It 
is six miles long. If laid over Manhattan it would 
reach from Wanamaker's store at Eighth Street, to 
One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street. It is a re- 
markable link in the great chain between the two 
railroads. It obviates breaking bulk at New York, 
and connects Southern New England with **all points 
west.'* 



US] 



XVIII 
THE SOLDIERS AND SAILORS MONUMENT 

IT is not what some one may say, but what the 
Nation feels, that tells the story of the Soldiers 
and Sailors Monument. 



Cso] 



XIX 

THE CATHEDRAL ON THE HEIGHTS 

THE EPISCOPAL CATHEDRAL of Saint John 
the Divine is the chief church of the diocese of 
New York. It stands on Morningside Heights, a 
magnificent site, from which it dominates all the sur- 
rounding city. Its enormous dome suggests that of 
Saint Peter's and on the very pinnacle of the apse the 
angel Gabriel faces east, sounding the trumpet in an 
endless note of triumph. 

Viewing this structure, although as yet unfinished, 
one tries, almost in vain, to realize that it is to be still 
larger and more wonderful when fully completed, and 
when time has mellowed its stately stones and has 
hung about its walls the indescribable dignity of age. 



Is^l 



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XX 

THE VIADUCT 

THE HUDSON and the Palisades combine in 
making "Riverside" one of the most naturally 
beautiful driveways in the world. Yet it owes much 
also to the workers of magic in steel. Northward 
from Grant's Tomb and Claremont for half a mile 
or more it is upheld by giant arches of their making. 
Across a whole valley, this broad roadbed all glistening 
in the sun and streaked by the gay lines of endless 
pleasure traffic, rolls grandly on, supported by the 
silent strength of that great land bridge, the Viaduct. 



C543 



XXI 
GRANT'S TOMB 

THE tomb of Ulysses S. Grant at One Hundred 
and Twenty-second Street and Riverside Drive 
is one of New York's best known landmarks. A 
structure of impressive grandeur and large historic 
interest, it encourages the thousands of New Yorkers 
that pass it daily to look forward to the time when 
their city will be ennobled by a fitting memorial of the 
heroic officers and men of the great world war. 



1:563 



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XXII 

THE BATTLESHIP ••OKLAHO^U•• OX THE 

HUDSOX 

IT often seems more dilBcult to recognize beaur^* in 
things \\iLh which we are famihar than in those 
which are more foreign to us. The Hudson is, beyond 
question, as splendid a river as any of which European 
cities can boast, yet ^^sito^s to Xew York often seem 
to appreciate it more than do the Xew Yorkers them- 
selves. \\Tiether t\\ink]ing under m>-riad lights on a 
summer night, or storm lashed in January-, the Hudson 
sweeps the whole west shore of Manhattan in lasting 
yet ever changing grandeur. Imagine yourself in an 
unknown, distant cir^*. and watch the sun so eoreeouslv 
do\\Ti behind the Palisades, while on the water its long 
reflection is ploughed to pieces by the river craft. 



CsSD 



XXIII 
HIGH BRIDGE 

BOLDLY across the Harlem River at One Hundred 
and Seventy-fourth Street stands High Bridge. 
It differs remarkably from other New York bridges in 
that it is built entirely of masonry. No steel con- 
struction, no suspension cable, no huge rolling lift 
or counter-poise relate it to the present dynasty of 
bridges. One hundred and thirty-five feet of solid 
stone it rises gray and enduring amid the surround- 
ing green. Surely it belongs to the Old World and 
to another time, and looking through its arches one 
half expects to see the towers and battlements of some 
old chateau, clear cut against the sky. One may even 
fancy, — but here a blunt-nosed tug rams puffing up 
against the tide, smoke belching from its stumpy 
funnel, the water churned to froth; and one has lost 
the wonders of the past in wonders of to-day. 



ceo] 



XXIV 
WASHINGTON BRIDGE 

WASHINGTON BRIDGE is one of the many 
arteries that join the Borough of the Bronx 
with Manhattan, and in thus connecting its enormous 
area and population with the rest of the metropoHs, 
is a material factor in making New York the fore- 
most city of the country. 



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XXV 
THE GRAND CENTRAL STATION 

THE GRAND CENTRAL is one of the finest 
railroad stations in the country. Fronting on 
Forty-second it extends to Forty-fifth Street and 
from Vanderbilt Avenue to Lexington. The group of 
figures forming the clock cartouche above its main 
facade is a piece of masterly sculpture. Its main hall 
is gigantic. The system with which its hundreds of 
trains arrive and depart is little less than magical. 
Yet greater far than these is the story of the crowds 
that come to New York on these trains, and the mass 
of hopes and aspirations that they bring to the city 
through this great gate. And of all who come buoyant, 
confident and convinced that they will wrest success 
from this thronging mart of millions, — how few 
achieve! And yet, though comparatively few, these 
victors form so vast an army that they many times 
outnumber the successful sons of the city, and are 
a mighty force in the making of New York, the 
Metropolis of the Nation. 



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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




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